could scarcely have been more absolutely shut in from the sunshine, scarcely could have been stiller or cooler, or more withdrawn from the blazing noonday, with its noises and rejoicings, than this narrow sombre avenue. They strayed down its entire length, from one blue arch of daylight to the other, before they spoke; and then it was Lauderdale who broke the silence, as if his thoughts, generally so busy and so vagrant, had never got beyond Alice Meredith’s last words. “Another time, Colin,” said the philosopher, “you’ll no make ony changes in the lesson for the day. Whiles it’s awfu’ hard to put up with the conditions o’ a leemited intellect; but whiles they’re half divine. I’m no pretending to be reasonable. She kens no more about reason than--the angels, maybe--I admit it’s a new development to me; but a woman like yon, callant, would keep a man awfu’ steady in the course of his life.” “Yes,” said Colin; and then with a strange premonition, for which he himself could not account, he added--“She would keep a man steady, as you say; but he would find little response in her--not that I regard her less respectfully, less reverentially than you do, Lauderdale,” he went on, hurriedly, “but--” “It wasna your opinion I was asking for,” said the philosopher somewhat morosely. “She’s like none of the women you and me ken. I’m doubtful in my own mind whether that dutiful and obedient spirit has ever been our ideal in our country. Intellect’s a grand gift, callant, baith to man and woman; but you’ll no fly in my face and assert that it’s more than second best.” “I am not up to argument to-day,” said Colin; and they walked back again the whole length of the avenue in silence. Perhaps a certain irritability, torn of their mutual grief, was at the bottom of this momentary difference; but somehow, in the stillness, in the subdued leafy shade, which at first sight had been so congenial to his feelings, an indescribable shadow stole over Colin’s mind--a kind of indistinct fear and reluctance, which took no definite shape, but only crept over him like a mist over the face of the sun. His heart was profoundly touched at once by the grief and by the self command of Alice, and by her utter helplessness and dependence upon himself and his friend. Never before had he been so attracted towards her, nor felt so much that dangerous softening sentiment of pity and admiration, which leads to love. And yet--; the two walked back silently under the dark ilex-trees, and across the piazza, which was now thronged with a gay and many-coloured crowd. The brighter the scene grew around them, the more they shut themselves up in their own silence and sorrow, as was natural; and Colin at length began to recognise a new element, which filled him with vague uneasiness--an element not in the least new to the perplexed cogitations of his guardian and anxious friend. CHAPTER XXXVI.